


Point of Impact

by AtomicPen



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Eventual Romance, Gen, Mother-Son Relationship, Strained Relationships, Unrequited Love, friendships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-21
Updated: 2015-09-21
Packaged: 2018-04-22 18:19:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4845560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AtomicPen/pseuds/AtomicPen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He will pull Kirkwall--and everyone in it--through its mess kicking and screaming if he has to.</p><p> </p><p>  <i>A series of ficlets and snapshots rotating around Gawyn Hawke.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Apple Didn't Fall Far

“No! I will not allow her to go with you on this dangerous adventure of yours!”

Gawyn ground his teeth together and concentrated on a jagged crack running thin up the side of a nearby wall just past where his mother stood. “It’s her choice.” He managed to keep the volume of his voice restrained.

Leandra balled fists into the front of her skirts. “No,” she repeated firmly. “Bethany is my baby girl. Your father might have let you run all about Ferelden when you were younger, but I will not lose her after what happened to Carver.”

A familiar tendon in his neck tightened at her words, her biting tone. “Father did not ‘let me’ do anything–I chose to leave.”

Anger flashed through her eyes, though she went on talking as if he hadn’t said anything, something he was sure she knew would only irritate him more. “I never approved, of course, but your father was probably more stubborn than you were. I tried to raise Carver and Bethany with more sense, and they never argued as much as you did or ran away from home when they got too angry. They always showed their mother respect.”

Gawyn’s nose flared and he scraped his bottom incisors roughly along his upper lip. She’s doing it to rile you, he told himself. Everything she says in an argument has always been to make your anger flare. Don’t give in this time. “This fucking 'adventure’ is going to help us get out of that thrice-damned excuse of a hovel. Bethany is a woman grown and you’ve got to start respecting her wishes instead of trying to shield her all the time. She–”

“ _Shield her?_ ” His mother exploded, red spreading across the bridge of her nose and into her sharp cheekbones. “Don’t you _dare_ talk to me about shielding your sister when you couldn’t do the same for Carver! It’s bad enough you dragged her along on Maker-knows-what sort of illegal 'jobs’ with that mercenary group your uncle sold you into when we got here–”

“Mother!” Gawyn thundered, a rush flooding into his neck and face. “We were not slaves and we had to repay our way into Kirkwall! Stop acting as if us doing work is an anathema. Perhaps if we hadn’t stopped at _your_ insistence and your absurd indulgent need to come back and pretend to pick up the pieces of a life _you ran away from_ , we’d have been in a better place than huddled at the ass-end of Lowtown!” Before he could stop himself–and he wasn’t sure he wanted to–the words flew like venom from his mouth. “I’m going into the Deep Roads to fucking do something about it and Bethany is coming with me. You have no say in the matter.”

Indignation took away whatever barb she had been preparing to spit out at him for a moment and her eyes widened as if he had struck her. His scowl deepened as furious steps brought her within inches of him, her chin jutting at a level with his chest as she glared acid up at him.

“If something happens to my Bethany down there, I will never forgive you.” Her words were colder than the worst Ferelden winter in his memory. He imagined his anger scorching them from the air.

“I have never expected forgiveness from you.”


	2. Nail on the Head

“Duck!”

The shouted command came from behind a steady arm and a drawn bow, two arrows nocked at once and aimed somewhere around the vicinity of his collarbone, Gawyn wagered. Without further ceremony, he threw himself to the ground and heard the _pang_  and felt the breeze of Sebastian’s arrows as they whipped through the air above him. A gurgled cry of pain came from behind him, and when Gawyn lifted his head again to look, he saw a bandit topple over with an arrow protruding from his head and neck both.

“How’d you know where they’d be?” he asked Sebastian, getting to his feet and ignoring the dust and dirt on his armor.

His reply was a shrug. “I marked them before and guesstimated where they’d be in relation to your height.” Sebastian walked over and braced his foot against the bandit’s skull, then chest, to pry his arrows free. One of the heads snapped off as he wrenched them out, and Sebastian clicked his tongue in admonishment, brushing his thumb along the split end of his arrow shaft. “I knew I rushed making that one.”

Gawyn snorted quietly in laughter. “I’ll get you another.” Sebastian glanced at him, and he made a vague dismissive motion with his hand. “Price for saving my life again.”

Slipping the useless arrow back into his quiver, Sebastian gave a quick smile. “Thank you. Though I am sure you will eventually repay me in kind, anyway.”

“Probably, yeah.” Gawyn drew out an old cloth and set about wiping off his axe. Sebastian leaned against the wall of one of the leaning alley buildings, watching him.

“How are… things with Aveline?” Sebastian asked after a moment.

A deep line creased between Gawyn’s eyebrows as his cleaning became quick, angry motions. “Not something you usually pry into,” he said, voice low.

He could practically feel the clear blue gaze settle on his shoulders. Gawyn did not look up from his weapon. “You’re deeply bothered by it,” was all Sebastian said.

“I’m not one of your congregation coming to confess,” Gawyn snapped. The axe head was free of blood and gore by now, but he continued buffing it anyway. To keep his hands moving, to keep his eyes, his focus on something.

“I don’t take confessions,” came the even reply. Gawyn heard the quiet creak of leather straps as he shifted. “I’m just concerned.”

“Well, there’s no reason for it. She’s made herself clear enough in who she wants.” His mouth turned down, remembering. _You and I? You’re right, it wouldn’t ever amounted to anything._

“Isabela said you turned her down, as well.”

This time Gawyn did look up, angry that had come up again, angry that Sebastian was so unmoved while being fixed with his glare. “Isabela likes to run her mouth too much sometimes.”

Sebastian nodded. “Aye, that she does. But she also said you hadn’t been with anyone–not even taking coin to the Rose.”

Heat rose up Gawyn’s neck despite willing it not to. “So? I don’t see you going there or chasing skirts around Hightown.”

The chuckle that followed surprised Gawyn, caught him off-guard enough to break the anger for a moment. “No, I don’t do that much any longer. But you’re not one who chooses to go without because it doesn’t appeal to you.” The knowing light behind Sebastian’s eyes made Gawyn frown and look away.

“Why does it matter?” he grumbled.

“I just want to know you’re not punishing yourself,” Sebastian told him, the amusement gone from his voice, replaced now with a softness that surprised Gawyn just as equally. “Aveline would have been good for you, but she isn’t the only one.”

“I–” He cut himself off, scraping his lower cuspids across his upper lip. “I don’t want to be with just anyone,” he said, carefully. “I’ve had… problems in the past.”

Pushing off the wall, Sebastian nodded and walked over to Gawyn. “I can understand that,” he said, resting a hand on Gawyn’s shoulder. “Just make sure you’re waiting for the right reasons.” His hand slid from the pauldron it had been resting on.

Gawyn looked back down at his axe for a moment before answering. “Right.” He straightened and hooked the long weapon across his back. “Let’s get going, then.”

Not pushing the topic any further, with a quick nod Sebastian fell in behind him as they left the narrow alleyway. They jogged along in silence for several minutes.

Without looking back, Gawyn said, “Sebastian?”

“Yes?”

“… Thanks.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for Sebastian Vael Appreciation Week (original found [here](http://atomicpen.tumblr.com/post/115912137449/psssst-do-sebastian-and-gawyn-being-shockingly) on tumblr)


	3. Just Another Night in Hightown

They were coming back from the Hanged Man, winding their way leisurely through the wide Hightown streets. When the others were around—tonight it was Anders and Varric, both up from the lower parts of the city for reasons of their own—Mairead did not usually rest her hand in the loop Gawyn made with his arm for her, so instead he just kept his long strides in pace with hers, his proximity close. They had outdistanced the other two a bit—or perhaps they were just being given a small bit of privacy—and a smile lit up his face as he looked at her.

They spoke softly, heads canted toward one another in the quiet night, and could hear the low back and forth as Varric and Anders made polite conversation with one another as well. She couldn’t make out any of their words, but wasn’t concerned in trying to do so, anyway.

“It’s a bit odd,” Gawyn was saying as she pulled her attention back to him.

“What’s that?”

His shoulders rolled back just a bit beneath his pauldrons, straightening his spine further and broadening his chest all in one small motion. “No one has come out to disrupt the night so far.”

Mairead glanced up at him. “It really can’t be so bad here at night,” she said, remembering the warnings he had given her when she first arrived about wandering Kirkwall at night alone, and every time he took her with him, he reminded her to wear her armor. She’d expect bandits in Darktown, any time of day, in Lowtown certainly at night, but still held her doubts of Hightown. Would the thugs and gangs truly be bold enough to strike in force against so a obviously armed and prepared group of people?

“You’d be surprised.”

Yet they continued on with no incident, and she nudged his arm with her shoulder, opening her mouth to make a smart comment, when Varric’s shout from behind them had them both whirling on the balls of their feet. A loose group of fighters in dark leathers dropped from the roofs of some of the lower Hightown buildings, all brandishing swords and daggers. A greenish glow flared momentarily to her right and she felt a warm surge run through her, boosting her energy. His back now to hers, Gawyn unhooked the massive axe from his baldric and swung it as he brought it around from his back in time to stave off the advance of two swordsmen with its vicious blade. She couldn’t spare any more attention on him as she snarled and lunged for the closest attacker.

The rhythm of battle took over her muscles and her mind, her blade now just an extension of her arm as she fought back the swordsman before her. She turned the tide of the fight and kicked at one of his knees, her boot making contact with a sickening crack and he dropped with a sharp cry of pain. Her sword opened his throat a moment later and she turned to her next target.

Her eyes locked on an archer lining his sights, and her feet lurched her into motion toward him before he could loose an arrow at anyone, but a bolt of energy jarred her nerves and knocked her off her feet. Cursing and shaking the energy from her head and her hands, she scrambled back to her feet.

“Just what we need,” she grated to no one. “Apostates.”

She ran to the archer, shoulder hunched down, and caught him with the full-force of her spauldron, knocking the wind from him as he flew back, arrow and bow flung from his hands. She finished incapacitating him as Varric shouted something from the other side of the courtyard they were in, a desperate pitch riding words she couldn’t make out. Had he called to Gawyn? Her attention was diverted as an apostate mage shimmered into the space right beside her, and she reacted instantly, her blade cutting through the woman’s robes and tearing through the cloth and biting into flesh beneath. The mage went down with a strangled cry, and Mairead wrenched her sword free, blood spattering in its wake.

The blood from the newly made corpse shimmered and shifted in the air, and she watched, lip curling in derision of its own accord. She backed away from the forbidden magic and picked another opponent to bring down. As if fighting mages weren’t bad enough, she didn’t need to have to worry about one potentially taking control of the very blood within her veins.

She could see both Varric and Anders fighting out of the corner of her eye, the former leaning back to rain down arrows over top a small grouping of enemy archers, and Anders was locked in battle with one of the apostate mages. Somewhere amidst it all, Mairead heard Gawyn’s angry shout. Soon, the courtyard was littered with bodies and the fighting was over. She pulled out an old cloth and wiped the blood and bits from her blade before sheathing it again. Anders joined her.

“Blood mages,” he spat. “Giving the rest of us a bad name and feeding that awful stereotype.” He shook his head as if to clear it. “Where’s Varric?”

She hastily searched the fallen with him, coming across Varric struggling with an arrow through his thigh next to one of the enemy archers, riddled with at least four of his crossbow bolts.

“Blasted broadhead arrows,” he cursed, sweat beading on his forehead.

“Here, let me.” Anders knelt down beside him and closed his eyes a moment, concentrating. Green washed over several spots on the dwarf’s body, though it focused primarily around the arrow protruding from his leg. The healer looked at Mairead. “Can you snap it off and push the head through? I’ll follow up immediately in healing it.”

She gave a quick nod and knelt, snapping the arrow’s shaft and hesitating only a moment to get a nod from Varric before slowly and steadily pushing it the rest of the way through his leg. Varric gitted his teeth and grimaced, but she could feel the warmth radiating off his thigh from Anders’ spell and knew the pain was greatly diminished from what it would have been otherwise. Varric let out an immense breath when the arrow was all the way through and leaned back on his hands as Anders finished mending the wound from the inside.

“You’re lucky,” Anders told him, drawing a vial of elfroot potion from a pocket and handing it to the dwarf. “Had that been a few inches over, you might’ve bled to death before we got to you.”

Varric threw back the potion like a shot and a small shiver rippled through him as his body soaked up the potion. “Good thing we keep you around then,” he remarked, then glanced between the two of them. “Speaking of bloodshed and death, where’s Hawke?”

Mairead stood swiftly and Anders looked up at her. “Usually he finds us after destroying whatever stragglers he’s hunted down and savaged,” he said, worried.

Varric waved at them. “You both go find our wayward boy.” He grunted, slowly working to get to his feet as gingerly as he could. “I’ll catch up in a minute.”

That was all she needed. Anders stood as she started off, her strides longer than was normal and her eyes scanning the courtyard for Gawyn’s looming bulk to present itself. Anders walked off to her right flank, calling out Hawke’s name a few times.

“Where are you, you bear?” Mairead muttered under her breath.

As if in reply, though he couldn’t have heard it, a low moan drifted up from behind a raised stone garden in the courtyard just before narrowing into a side street. She knew instantly it was his voice and called for Anders even as she jogged over to him. Her heartbeat stuttered and her footsteps faltered when she he came into her view.

Lying on the flagstones, Gawyn looked more a felled metal tree next to the body of an apostate than simply a man in armor. His lips were pale and his eyes fluttering as he tried to maintain consciousness. Blood pooled between his body and the mage’s, dark and congealing. A strangled cry left Mairead’s throat and her heart twisted into a lump in her chest as she ran the rest of the way to him and dropped to her knees. She took his face between her hands and blanched at how cold his skin was compared to normal.

“Gawyn—Gawyn no,” she pleaded him. “No, no, no, you’ve got to stay with me, can you hear me?” Without waiting for an answer from him, she looked up at Anders, kneeling down on his other side.

The healer hovered his hands over Gawyn’s and his brow creased deeply. “He’s lost a lot of blood. There’s… residual magic inside of him.”

Mairead glanced at the pooled blood on the flagstones, the apostate lying only a few feet away from where they knelt beside Gawyn with the head of his axe still stuck in his side. Errant drops fell from the blade to mark a slow, macabre beat on the stones. She tore her eyes from the sight and made them settle on Anders.

She didn’t say anything to him; she didn’t need to. Anders gave a small nod, then drew in a fortifying breath and set to work.

It felt like several eternities passed. Mairead watched Anders, his cheekbones reflecting green as he mended, her stomach knotting. Varric joined them eventually, his mouth drawn and terse. He placed a light hand on Mairead’s shoulder for a moment before he limped over to Anders and quietly asked him if he needed anything. Anders muttered something in the negative, intent on Gawyn, sweat forming along his hairline.

The rise and fall of Gawyn’s chest was hidden by the black cuirass, but she could hear it echoing shallowly for far too long a time. Her hands were wringing themselves with no conscious thought on her part, and there was a thickening in her throat that was threatening to overwhelm her.

This was taking far too long. What if there wasn’t anything Anders could do? What if they had gotten to him too late? Mairead’s throat tightned more and she pushed a swallow through the constriction. Sweat clung to her palms, as she gripped Gawyn’s gauntlet with white knuckles beneath her gloves.

“Ah!” Anders exhaled suddenly, sitting back. Some color flooded back into into Gawyn’s face and his breathing deepened. His eyes shut completely, then he squeezed them a little and opened them, slow and almost groggy. Anders sagged backward, exhausted, and Varric darted forward to stop his fall, but all Mairead had the space in her for was on Gawyn.

His grey eyes were the palest she’d ever seen them, as if the life had been drawn out of them like poison from a wound, and she tightened her grip on his hand and felt tears well in her eyes. He whispered her name hoarsely, a prayer tumbling from his lips. Lifting the cold metal of his gauntlet to her lips, she felt hot tracks of tears sliding down to her jaw. Gawyn weakly turned the wrist of the hand in her grip to lightly cup her cheek.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he told her.


	4. Fashion Sense

He really didn’t mind going to the tailor regularly with Mairead. It was something she enjoyed doing for him, and he liked to see her enjoy herself. And, he had to admit, she did have good taste while working within the confines of what he didn’t prefer to wear.

But when the tailor started slipping in tunics with puffed sleeves, under the excuse that “it’s what was in fashion”, Gawyn would take none of it. He grabbed a fistful of the damn things and stalked to the tailor’s shop in Hightown by himself, a dark cloud over his face. He had always specified he did not like such sleeves after the first time a tunic with them was offered, and he expected his request to be honored, considering the money he kept giving the man for his business. The door to the shop flew open (harder than he actually intended), the bell jangling painfully as it slammed into the wall. The assistant in the shop jumped at the sound and sight of him looming in the open doorway.

“C-can I help you, uh, serrah?” the assistant stammered, immediately getting up from his seat behind the wooden counter that served to partition a foyer-like area from the circular fitting room.

In answer, Gawyn dumped the tunics onto the counter, expensive fabrics rumpled against one another. “These need to be altered or replaced.”

The assistant swallowed hard and lifted a hand as if to rummage through the pile of tunics, but then snatched his hand back like it was a hot stove or a viper ready to strike. “Is… ah, what is it that’s wrong with them? I’m sure we’ll be able to fix whatever–”

“The sleeves,” Gawyn interrupted, placing his hands carefully on the counter and leaning forward just slightly, knowing exactly how imposing that small motion was. “I specifically asked for no loose sleeves the first time my lady brought me to your master. He appears to have forgotten that… incident.”

There really had been no ‘incident’, though Gawyn did not elaborate nor mention that fact. This apprentice didn’t need to know. 

“These need to be altered,” he repeated, albeit more slowly than the first time. “Or replaced.”

Wiping his palm on his white tunic as Gawyn’s gaze never left him, the apprentice just nodded several times, rapidly. “Yes, yes–of course. Ah, let me–let me get my master for you.” He turned and fled from the counter to the back of the shop.

Gawyn straightened and took his hand from the counter and looked around a bit while he waited. It really was a simple request, he groused to himself. If they had just not tried to foist ridiculous, foppish fashion on him when he simply needed functionality, this wouldn’t be happening. He scowled a bit at the shirts on display, noting the places that would catch or most likely be torn if the wearer would be caught in a fight. He snorted to himself as the tailor came to the front, sans apprentice.

“Ah, yes, serrah Hawke, how can I help you?” Even as he asked the question, his voice trailed off a bit when he saw the crumpled pile of tunics. Gawyn swore he saw the man’s face blanch a little. “There is a problem with your shirts…?”

Letting out a controlled breath loud enough for the tailor to clearly hear, Gawyn said, “I have already told your apprentice boy twice. I would rather not repeat myself a third time.”

The tailor swallowed and tore his eyes from the tunic pile back to Gawyn, who was at least a head taller than him. “I understand your complaint, serrah,” the tailor obviously struggled to maintain a confident tone to his voice, “but this is the height of fashion right now, and your lady _did_ ask me quite specifically to ensure that you had the most–”

“Messere.” The single word stopped the tailor mid-sentence, his mouth snapping shut. “Who am I?”

For a moment, the frightened look that passed over the tailor’s face told Gawyn he thought it was a trick question, but then he replied, meekly, “The… Champion of Kirkwall, serrah.”

“That’s right. And what does the Champion of Kirkwall do?”

The tailor’s mouth opened and shut a few times, nothing coming out, before he shook his head. “Champions… Kirkwall…?”

“I became Champion of Kirkwall by defeating the Arishok in single combat,” Gawyn started. “I would have thought that could go unspoken, but I’ve already started saying things I didn’t think I had to, so why not add one more?” The tailor knew better than to answer that question, so Gawyn continued, folding his arms across the expanse of his chest. Even without armor he cut an imposing figure, and he knew it. “Think about that battle. What if I had been wearing the 'height of fashion’ then? How many more times would those sleeves been caught by a Qunari blade?” His eyes grew even more flat in their gaze, never wavering on the tailor’s face. “Perhaps this city would be under Qunari rule, even now.”

The tailor tried stammering an answer out, but Gawyn held up his hand and stopped him from attempting further speech. “It’s very simple.” He drew the words out slowly. The man before him was very nearly quaking in his boots.

“No more loose sleeves,” Gawyn said, shifting his weight just slightly. “No more problems.”

A soft ding sounded from behind him as the door, which had shut after Gawyn’s volcanic entrance. “I wondered where you had wandered off to,” Mairead’s voice came as she walked up to him. She took in his stance, the set of his jaw, the look plastered over the poor tailor’s face. Noting the tunics on the counter, she turned to the tailor and smiled, though little humor was in it. “Problem?”

Gawyn half-turned to her and smiled, his face relaxing just a bit. “Not at all. I was just having a friendly business chat over a misunderstanding.” His gaze slid back to rest on the tailor, who looked unsure whether to be relieved at Mairead’s arrival or more worried. “Right, messere?”

The tailor took a moment to register the question, but once he did he immediately nodded. “Y-yes of course, serrah! Just a misunderstanding. I will get to work on fixing it right–right away.” The smaller man hastily grabbed the pile of tunics and fled to the back of his shop.

“What,” Mairead said as Gawyn turned to her, unfolding his arms and leaning in to press his lips against her forehead, “was that all _really_  about?”

“Sleeves,” he replied simply, with a shrug. He moved to the door and they left the shop. “And a few of my own fashion suggestions.”


	5. Breaking Point

Gawyn roughly rubbed his face, dark circles staring back at him in the mirror from beneath his eyes. How long had it been now? Five months. Five months since he’d been forced to kill Kirkwall’s First Enchanter and the Knight-Commander both. Five months since most of his old friends and allies had scattered. The faint lines across his brow deepend into furrows. Gawyn shut his eyes against the reflection staring back at him. Nathaniel Howe had been there five months ago, amid all the insanity, fought beside Gawyn against Meredith. Fought beside Mairead.

_After everything had fallen to ash around him and at his bewildered feet, he’d fought against the tightening grip around his heart, tried to concentrate on breathing steady and finding his friends. He saw them helping each other up, checking for wounds, even helping the Templars that had joined them in the end. Mairead had been hunched over a prone form and he hobbled over to her as quickly as he could—one of his ribs had been broken and his right kneecap nearly cracked and pain shot through every nerve in his body with each step he took. But he ignored it and pressed toward her, seeing her shoulders give a tell-tale shudder. He’d been terrified the still figure sheltered by the curve of her body had been one of his own, one of the people he had called family all these years, but he stopped dead when he saw who it was and heard a snippet of their shaky conversation. He stood still as stone for a few breaths, his heart pounding against his ribs and in his ears then turned and went back among the broken statues to his waiting friends and gathering Templars instead._

_She’d come to him later while Aveline was bandaging his bared ribcage with red eyes and a puffed face that told him she’d been crying a good deal. Nathaniel needed to be taken to Amaranthine immediately for better care, she said, and she would be taking him there. He averted his eyes when he told her he hoped she wouldn’t be long. They had said no more, then and she had left him alone with Aveline again._

He had ruined everything the week after that. He leaned his head forward to rest on the cool glass of the mirror and winced, the memory of the argument hanging about his head like a miasma that threatened to choke the life from him. He’d thrown accusations at her like caltrops and she had turned to ice in the face of his fire. Then she had left with Nathaniel for Amaranthine.

And five months had passed.

Oh, he’d known she’d be mad for a while, and let her be at first. But when the second month of her absence ended and he felt her lack more keenly with every moment in both waking and sleep, the latter of which for him was fitful at best and not at all more and more. His bed was too cavernous without her, the sheets held too much of a chill, and the scent of her that still lingered everywhere in her pillows and in the room itself twisted screws into his heart.

Gawyn penned letters after that—the first still angry, the words burned into the paper from his pen as hot as the fire that burned through his veins. His only reply in return was from his cousin, telling him more than he wanted to know about Mairead’s past with Nathaniel Howe, and that she had left Amaranthine continued on to Highever. It was only a few at first, but then he sent one a week after the first three remained unanswered. He began to become noticeably restless and agitated to others by the end of the third month; nearly two annums had passed without her there, and he sullenly refused to take part in them.

All his staff and his few remaining friends tried to distract him with whatever they could—the city needed rebuilding on all levels, but neither the social reconstruction nor even the pure physical labor of putting houses and walls back together could pull him from his growing destitution. Donnic and Fenris started inviting him to their Diamondback games, but neither his heart nor his mind were invested in the cards. Regardless, Kirkwall still had a vacuum of power and needed a leader, and everyone was looking to him to fill it. He accepted it when Seneschal Bran approached him with signatures, the backing of the nobility—and even mentioned he had the support of the remaining inhabitants of Lowtown—formally asking him to be Kirkwall’s Viscount, but the acceptance rang hollow in his throat. He sent her an invitation folded within yet another letter, and it frightened him, shook the marrow of his bones, constricted his throat at the thought she might not come. That she might stay in Highever and not come back at all.

In a desperate fit one sleepless night, he filled his traveling packs with the intent to slip away and go to see her himself. He hesitated, could not go, not until he could find the words to say to her that would convince her to come back with him and not drive her further away.

No response arrived from Highever. Plans for his appointment ceremony continued on around him without him really taking part; he was the eye in a storm swirling around him and unable to do a thing to move himself. How was he supposed to do this? Gawyn was no diplomat. He knew armor and blades and fists and blood, not delicate words and careful maneuvering. He couldn’t do this without her and he couldn’t even find the words to bring her back.

He still hadn’t thought of anything that might have succeeded when the evening of the ceremony arrived, and he was beyond desperate at that point.

The collar of his formal doublet was too tight and the chest and sleeves felt to tight even though he knew they weren’t. She had made sure to find a tailor who remembered to take into account the full breadth of his chest and range of movements, so it fit exactly the way it was supposed to, but he felt like tearing it off himself. Gawyn was more than ready to tell everyone to continue as planned without him and grab his pack and go. He tugged at his buttoned collar again, mentioning as much to Sebastian, who stood beside him in his own formal, Starkhaven regalia. Sebastian did not seem to be as eager to agree with his plan to leave as Hawke futilely hoped he would be.

“Hawke, if you would just calm down for a moment, and maybe have a drink—”

“Calm? I am calm, Sebastian. Calm as I can be. I just need to cut the evening a bit short.” Hawke took a step to one side, realized it was the beginnings of a pace and stopped himself.

“Short?” Sebastian’s eyebrows both went up, and he folded his arms over his chest. “Hawke, everyone has just finished arriving for your ceremony—and you’ve only barely been officially declared Viscount!”

Abruptly, Hawke sharply cut through the air with his hand held as stiff as a real blade. “Bleeding  _Void_ , Kirkwall can wait another few weeks for me to get to Highever and back. It’s survived these past few years despite everyone trying for the contrary, and I’m sure it will survive a month without me.” He was talking faster then, he knew, and he was definitely not calm, but it shook him like an earthquake and he could do just as little to stop it. “It just—” _doesn’t feel right without her—_ “I only—” _want her, need her, can’t live without her by my side, and it aches so much—_

He blurted out, the desperation hanging jagged around his voice, “I’ve got to talk to her, Sebastian. We parted on… not the best terms, and it was my fault, and I just…” Hawke shook his head, chest deflating from a deep exhale. “I’ve got to go to Highever. I don’t like—I can’t leave things like this.”

Sebastian tilted his head at Hawke, his auburn eyebrows drawn together as he studied his friend. “This is out of character for you, Hawke. What on earth happened that made you so…” The Prince of Starkhaven trailed off and turned the outside heel of his boot just slightly to look more clearly over Gawyn’s taller shoulder, his entire face falling into a state of bewilderment.

Hawke didn’t look at his face, his grey eyes too intent on glaring at the wall off to his left.

“It’s just that it was… such a bad note. A sour taste. Restless sleep. Things that won’t stop clawing around in my head, and it’s been over four months since it happened, and I think it’s gotten worse, or that I’m starting to go mad.” He paused. “Scratch that, I think I am _definitely_ going mad.”

Sebastian wasn’t paying attention to Gawyn at all while he was speaking, but staring at the stunning woman who had just halted nearly every conversation in the Keep with just her presence. She looked like a walking flame—red dress and flashing auburn hair, everything made as if in obvious support of Hawke’s appointment.

“Ah,” Sebastian began as the woman stalked closer, nearing the stairs that lead up to the dais and leaving a trail of curious murmurs in her wake. “Hawke…?”

Gawyn wasn’t listening, wrapped in destructive thoughts and glowering at his hands as if he could blame them for everything instead of the words he himself had said to her.

The woman stopped at the bast of the steps below where Gawyn and Sebastian stood in a whisper of rustling fabric, her soft-soled boots giving no preamble to her arrival to Hawke, who’s back was turned to her.

Something about the sudden quiet in the room finally registered in the back of Gawyn’s mind, and he tensed automatically, his fighting instincts taking hold of his muscles. He looked at Sebastian’s face and saw the astonishment writ across it, then—

“My lord.”

He’d recognize that voice every time for the rest of eternity; if she’d whispered in an army of shouting people he would have heard it and known who it was. _That smokey voice breathless in his ear, murmured against his skin, snaking through his veins like an elixir—_ his spine went rigid as iron and he felt his heart stop and the air in his lungs caught on fire. Was it really her? It couldn’t truly be her, she was still in Highever—wasn’t she? She’d never sent word. His heart restarted, a fluttering bird trapped in the cage of his chest.

And then she spoke again, low and soft, “Did you miss me?”

All at once his limbs came back under his control and he could finally move to turn and face her; some nobles on the outer wings of the dais had walked over near him, asking who this presumptuous woman was, but their questions didn’t even reach his ear. He didn’t care if she was still mad at him; she was wearing his _red_ and he didn’t remember striding down the dais steps, but then he was right in front of her and he didn’t stop until she was swept up and up into his arms. Mortified murmurs of _scandal_ and a hundred questions all demanding the same answers surrounded them like a sea, but he didn’t care at all because she was his island in the waters and she was here and his nose was buried in her long hair.

When he finally set her feet back on the floor, she took his hand in hers, eyes never leaving his face, and without another word she pulled him through the parting crowd of nobles and guests, sliding immediately in the dance she had taught him back in his estate before he had cracked the face of the foundation they had built between them. Sebastian quickly motioned for the chamber musicians to play, and they quickly launched into a song matching their dance.

And everything was perfect—even when he forgot a step or two and nearly trampled her feet yet still couldn’t stop grinning like a fool—because she was back in his arms and his world was whole again.

As Sebastian made the rounds for his friend and let everyone know very unequivocally that this woman who came in and stole the new Viscount was Hawke’s consort, yes everything was all right, and no, there really was no scandal here (he hoped). He stole a glance to Gawyn and watched him hold Mairead like she was a direct line to his heart and soul, and it suddenly struck him just how much Hawke must care for this woman to be willing to just drop everything at once to go look for her, every other consequence be damned. He hoped for his friend’s sake that whatever storm churned their waters would smooth again, and he couldn’t help but smile as he watched them, thinking this was probably a very good step toward that.


End file.
